says the charter, une application du principe de la liberté en tout et pour tout, que les Belges ont proclamés les premiers.”

• Every man's house is his castle. No one, whatever be his station or rank, can enter the house of any other man by night, no matter how humble, unless in case of some accident or occurrence where he comes to assist the owner.

The press is free. No censorship can be established, nor can bail be demanded of either author, editor, or printer. When the author is known, and is an inhabitant of Belgium, neither editor, distributor nor printer, can be prosecuted. This the Belgians consider one of the greatest triumphs of the revolution.

The post-office is responsible by law for all letters committed to it, and the contents of all letters are inviolable.

Toleration is universal and indiscriminate towards all forms of worship. The church has no alliance or connexion of any sort with the state, and cannot be interfered with by any authority in the appointment of its ministers, who are all paid by the government.-pp. 205-210.

The space which we have devoted to these volumes will be an evidence of the opinion which we entertain of their merits. They exhibit in general an impartial spirit, a firm, unbending devotion to constitutional freedom, and consequently to the true happiness of mankind; they contain the observations of one who evidently has sufficient acuteness and knowledge of the world to give value to his criticisms on men and things, and as they may boast of being written in a very clear, and often very amusing style, they naturally come under that class of intellectual recreations, without which, no prudent family ought to pass the holidays of the present season.

ART. IV.-An Inquiry into the Principles of Population, exhibiting a System of Regulations for the Poor, designed immediately to lessen, and finally to remove, the Evils which have hitherto pressed upon the Labouring Classes of Society.1 Vol. 8vo. London: Duncan. 1832.

It is truly an auspicious circumstance, that at the moment when this nation is challenged to the performance of some of the most momentous duties which she owes to herself, she should appear freshened and invigorated for the task by a process of renovation, whose influence, it is sincerely to be hoped, will be permanent. The Reform Act having restored to the rightful possessors of such a trust, the constitutional faculty, of participating by their deputies in the councils by which the country is to be governed, the people have sympathised with the noble feelings that dictated this act of regeneration, and have generously carried into execution all that its spirit had prescribed.

It is time, indeed, that the good sense, the bold candour, the practical sagacity of Great Britain, should be fairly directed upon

the sources of her own domestic calamities. Whilst the House of Commons was but a very partial representative of the peoplewhilst a considerable portion of its members were the mere agents of their own interests, no serious determination to examine sternly into the condition of the country could be expected from Parliament. But now that the House has realized the true definition which applies to it-now that it has established its title to a legitimate hereditary descent from its acknowledged parent, it is the conviction of every reasonable man, that the settlement of the domestic concerns of the country will no longer be postponed.

There is scarcely a branch of the general administration connected with the internal affairs of Great Britain which is not, at this moment, in a condition to demand extensive improvements. In some instances, indeed, the necessity of reform is such, as to associate together in our minds the slightest delay with the most imminent peril. To justify the truth of our assertion, would require a much more comprehensive search than we have the opportunity of effecting. It is not difficult, however, to recall, for they are, unfortunately, too obvious, some of the principal causes of national suffering, which it is incumbent on the new Parliament to endeavour to redress.

Our selection on the present occasion has been guided, in a great measure, by the author of the work before us, who, though somewhat unseasonably reserved in withholding his name from the world, has laboured with great diligence and ability to facilitate the application of a remedy. It is no small proof of the truth of his judgment, and of his adaptation to the task which he undertakes, that he seizes on the amount and relative circumstances of our population, as the materials in which the whole mystery of our condition is deposited. To these great subjects he seems to have devoted extraordinary attention, and whatever sanction we may be disposed to yield to his conclusions, we cannot possibly object to the spirit of justice with which he seeks to establish his premises, and to carry forward the course of his argument.

The theory which represents that the human race is subject to an inevitable law, by which it has a constant tendency to increase beyond the means of subsistence that can be provided for it, has been regarded in this country, not merely as a speculation, but a practical truth, the existence of which is sufficiently proved to justify a practical inference from it. The Legislature even has seen it in this light, and acted upon it as an admitted principle. Now one of the fundamental objects of the author of the present work, is to show that this theory has no foundation in fact, and that though from time immemorial, and in almost every community with which we are acquainted, some portion of the population have been habitually destitute of a sufficiency of food, yet that this defect was not owing to the absolute impossibility of

increasing the stock of provisions, but to an ignorance of those numerous contrivances for multiplying the means of human subsistence, to which the ingenuity and intelligence of man give rise. It is true that the food grown in a given country may be too limited in its quantity for the supply of the whole of the inhabitants. But skilful cultivation will at first double the produce; this again may be increased, in a series altogether unlimited, if the import of food from other countries, is capable of being effected, in consequence of the success of the commerce of that which stands in need of the increase. Here, then, we see that it is not by the mere capability of the soil that we are to measure the amount of the population which may be provided for in a given country; the materials of sustenance may be infinitely increased by a people who have great knowledge, great industry, and who are stimulated to acquire the one and to exercise the other, by the security which a good government will afford to them in the possession of the fruits of their labours. When, therefore, a country is barbarous, when the inhabitants are unacquainted with any of the arts of life-when, in short, they are without the power of making use of any artificial methods to augment the supply which nature spontaneously affords them, the birth of every new child amongst them, only puts in danger the subsistence of the whole, and thus it is that population will ever be found to press against the means of existence.

The true inference to be derived from this reasoning is, that it is in the power of society to prevent the possibility of such an event as a surplus of population, in comparison with the amount of sustenance to supply them. This they can and ought to do, for whilst by their knowledge, and by being in possession of all the benefits of a good government, and of a well organized community, they can provide sustenance faster than population can multiply; they have it further in their power to modify the rate of increase in the population, and keep it within bounds through the medium of a moral force, which, in such a society, must always be adequately efficient. The society we speak of, it must be understood, has all the advantages of industry, security of property, knowledge, and good government. Wherever these or one of them is not to be found, there certainly food will not be adjusted to population; not because the due proportion of sustenance could not be obtained, but because the absence of some of those advantages which have been just described, is sufficient to interrupt the complete operation of the law, whereby food would accomodate itself to population. It is in this way that the author explains the poverty of the lower classes in England, who, he says, want bread not from the deficiency of abundant produce, but from a vicious policy on the part of the Government, which throws insurmountable obstacles in the way of the natural course of human affairs, and places in the hands of one class a monopoly

of those means of subsistence which would, under a wiser system, be proportionably distributed amongst the whole. The portion of the population, then, for which insufficient food is obtained, must necessarily be regarded as redundant, and how it is that a class of individuals, to whom this designation strictly applies, should be found to exist in England so long, is fully explained by the author. He tells us that the relation in which all the labouring classes are now placed is such, that they are entirely at the mercy of their employers; that is, a labourer cannot now create a means of profitable industry for himself-he cannot, at a given moment, walk forth with the implements of his employment in his hands, and engage in any work that may bring him in a comfortable subsistence for the day: this he cannot do; he is compelled to seek out a master, who is willing to give him occupation, and, upon the chance of his being able to do so, does the labourer's hope of a release from penury depend. It is, therefore, in proportion to the employer's capability to supply work, that the labouring class can be at all comfortable. But then, it must be understood, that the capabilities here spoken of, do not arise alone from mere capital, as that word is usually interpreted; they also belong to the man who possesses skill and knowledge of his business, and who is enabled to carry on practical operations to a certain extent, by means of his credit with the world, as well as if he had actual capital to sustain him.

Those who may be pointed out as examples of this class of employers, are the master manufacturers and the cultivators of the soil, and if of these there be not a sufficiency in the country to keep the labourers in occupation, the latter will be unable to maintain an existence. Following up these views, the author proceeds to put a hypothetical case. Suppose, says he, that the different classes of society are, at a certain time, properly adjusted as to their mutual proportions; suppose that there be just enough of employment for those who are willing to work ;-in such a case as this the community will be prosperous and happy. But take the inhabitants of the same place after a single generation shall have passed, let the persons who employ labourers, be increased only on a small scale, for their number may have been restrained by the influence of prudent considerations; on the other hand, let those who want employment be increased, let them lose all consideration of the consequences of matrimonial engagements; let them, on the contrary, be stimulated by impolitic institutions, and what then takes place? Simply this, that there are more candidates for service than there are masters to engage them, and the surplus over and above those employed, have no refuge but the parish to support their existence. Such is the exact account of the cause which has led to what is called a redundant population in this country; and if further proofs are required that the author is justified in his reasoning, they are amply supplied in the sub

sequent pages of this volume. To this we refer the reader who is desirous of pursuing the subject; our duty is to pass at once to the remedy which is recommended for the adoption of the new Parliament. The proposal first urged by the author, is to get rid of the grievance of an excessive population by an immediate emigration; that object accomplished, then comes the all-important task-to prevent the return of the national disorder which has just been but temporarily removed. The author, in laying down his plan for a systematic prevention of a redundant population, divides its details into separate heads. He begins with the consideration of the means by which prudential restraint, in regard to marriage, may be imposed on labourers. In seeking to influence this class by the same considerations of moral restraint as actuate the middle classes, the author seems to be adequately impressed with a conviction of the obstacles against which he has to contend. He is well aware how extensive is the revolution which he meditates, but this consideration does not diminish his confidence in the practicability of his scheme. He thinks that one of the fundamental steps towards the change, should be to place the paupers and the employed class immediately above them in contact. This class, it must be allowed, is very much interested in the system of eleemosynary payments: the poors' rate is really, in reference to them, only so much money withheld from the purchase of manufacturing produce. A rich man pays 201. a-year to the poor fund; had this money been laid out in providing for the personal wants of that rich man, the working artizans of the country would be all the better for the exchange. The basis, therefore, of the author's plan would be, to bring a pauper before a jury of workmen, who should decide on his case, describe the nature of the work to which he should be put, and measure the quantity of food. which he should be entitled to receive. The further details of the plan, we shall give in the words of the author himself:

In each parish, or some other local division, according to circumstances, a certain number of workmen should be selected, either by rotation or otherwise, and according to their character for industrious habits, discretion, and proper feelings, who should investigate all cases of vagrancy and pauperism that occurred within the parish. These juries should be composed of persons but in a very slight degree above the pauper whom they judged; they should be on the verge themselves; that is to say, that class, of all others, most interested in the suppression of mendicity. The jurors should be nominated in such a manner as palpably to strike the observation of the pauper, that the investigation of his misfortune or delinquency proceeded with the utmost impartiality. Sobriety, good conduct, and superior intelligence, should alone recommend them; and it would be expedient to give a small pecuniary assistance out of a fund, hereafter to be described, in lieu of lost time, for their attendance.

The mode of proceeding would naturally bear a resemblance to a court of justice. A permanent officer in each parish or district, liberally